Half a Penny to Your Community Arts Programs?

Eating a lunch you brought from home can enable your community arts organizations to change a child's life...

Sera is standing backstage, her little heart pounding. It's not stage fright. Sera's parents and teachers have convinced her she's amazing.

And...they're right.

Sera isn't an incredible singer, dancer, or actress. She has more energy than most broadway stars, though, and that's why her director let her play this role.

But that isn't why she's amazing.

She's amazing because...she's Sera. She and the other seven-year-olds have been practicing the same songs, the same dances, the same words over and over again so that they could stand in front of an audience and shine.

A few years later, Sera is in another production at her highschool. She's a lot better than when she was nine, but so is everyone else, and she loves that. Well, usually. Her teachers still help her feel amazing, but now they also show her how she can be better.

Now Sera is in college. The competition in the school shows is more than she has time for as an engineering student, but she still loves being on stage. She still loves singing, dancing, and performing! And a little theater near the school is the perfect place for her. They rehearse less frequently and are a bit less polished, but the community loves their theater and cheers them on night after night. They celebrate a stage full of students, moms, dads, families, lawyers, engineers, salespeople, waiters, and waitresses because it is their community and their theater.

Their theater.

Sera is their daughter, their granddaughter, their sister, and their mother. The community theater brings her together with others, old and young, rich and poor, with diverse, sometimes crazy diverse, backgrounds. And they become friends. They become family.

Professional theaters hire professional talent and professional staff and run with professional politics. To pay for all this, professional organizations charge professional prices.

Community arts organizations have volunteers. Volunteers who learn to do what the professionals do, with less time and more love.

Community organizations charge less so that more people in the community can come. So that Sera's family can attend to see her perform without having to choose who can come and who has to stay home.

Giving half-a-penny can help an arts organization thrive.

Half a penny per dollar per month, for most people, means bringing a lunch to work a couple of times instead of going out. When a community comes together to give half a penny every month to their community arts organizations - not through taxes, but by a conscious, deliberate choice - they create a place for their Sera's to thrive, to recover, to be safe, to perform, to believe, to shine.

To be loved.

Bardheart is committed to helping communities support their storytelling organizations - theaters, libraries, and more. Our heroes are those who donate monthly to help their Sera's shine.

Check out what we do, and join us in supporting your community.